Warning

ExpoGuide!

A company calling itself Commercial Online Manuals is now offering our customers insertions in the Expo Guide catalogue for three years at a cost of 1,018 per year.

None of the exhibitions/trade fairs organised by Elmia are behind this catalogue, and we wish to bring it to the attention of all our exhibitors that the letter from Commercial Online Manuals is misleading. The contract is formulated in such a way as to make it very easy to sign it without realising what one is committing oneself to. In addition, the annual cost is only shown in small print.

As some of you may recall, a company called Construct Data Verlag (CDV) used the same methods when offering exhibitors insertions in the Fair Guide catalogue. CDV was brought before the courts and found guilty of misleading marketing practices.

Fairlink, the professional and industrial council for Scandinavian trade show organisers, estimates that some hundred Scandinavian companies fall for this scam every year. The figure for companies in the rest of Europe must run into the thousands.

Fair Guide/Construct Data Verlag

- Stop sending out misleading forms to companies within the EU and countries affiliated to the EU.

- Withdraw all its demands against the companies, located within the EU and countries affiliated to the EU, with which it is currently in dispute.This means that:

1) Companies which have already been affected, and have informed Construct Data Verlag that they have signed the form in error, do not need to take any further action.

2) If, however, any company should, in the future, mistakenly sign a form from Construct Data Verlag, it will be sufficient for the company to inform Construct Data Verlag that the form was signed in error, and that Construct Data Verlag shall not send any more demands.

This agreement also means that Construct Data Verlag has only a very small possibility of taking legal action regarding this matter against any company in an Austrian court of law.